The Tang Clan (4)
He had reached the Transformation Realm once before, in his previous life.
But now, returned twenty years into the past and looking up at that same height from a body that had climbed only as far as the Peak, it felt like an entirely different thing.
Hyeong Jin steadied his trembling limbs. His gaze lifted, straight and level, to the Tang Clan Head.
Crushed beneath that aura, he should hardly have been able to move — and yet he looked the man full in the face without bending. A smile touched the corner of the Clan Head's mouth.
"You sent for me, Clan Head?"
"I hear you've grown familiar with my daughter. A child who never spared a glance for anything but poison — and now a report comes in that she's out late at night with some worthless wretch."
"Are you looking to die?"
The Tang Clan Head rose from his seat, and the force bearing down on Hyeong Jin grew heavier still. The floor, unable to endure it, caved and warped; the furniture all around them began to twist.
Inwardly, Hyeong Jin broke into a cold sweat. The Clan Head's devotion to his precious daughter knew no bounds, and that was precisely why Dang Hwa, for all the disasters she trailed behind her, had never suffered any real punishment within the clan.
"That was never my intention."
The Clan Head's face twisted into something murderous.
"Then you're saying my daughter isn't to your liking?"
The aura pouring off him swelled thicker still.
What does he even want me to say?
Bewilderment washed over Hyeong Jin's face.
"You have no idea how brilliant that child is. The moment she learned to speak, she called me Papa. At ten years old she discovered a new poison — and this, in the Tang Clan, where no one under heaven can match us in the art of poison."
Hyeong Jin's expression turned distinctly uncomfortable.
"That... is remarkable."
"And her beauty needs no mention. My daughter, fully worthy of the title Greatest Beauty of Sichuan — and you mean to stand there and tell me she displeases you?"
The words came down like a barrage, and Hyeong Jin could only look sheepish. Enduring the breath-crushing pressure, he barely managed to open his mouth.
"That isn't what I—"
"What do you mean, that isn't what you meant!"
"..."
"You little thief. An elder is speaking, and you dare answer back to every word?"
Does a man's realm simply refuse to rise in this damned jianghu unless he's completely unhinged?
The Clan Head put him all too much in mind of his own master, and a bleak exasperation settled over Hyeong Jin — and then the old man drew his aura back in.
"How fares the Sect Leader?"
Hyeong Jin smiled.
"Hale and well. Much as you are, Clan Head."
"I heard he had entered seclusion."
"It seems he found some attainment."
The Clan Head's face brightened.
"Now that is the most welcome thing I've heard. Give the Sect Leader my regards. And tell him this old man was rather hurt that he didn't even come for my birthday."
Hyeong Jin nodded.
"I'll convey it exactly as you've said."
For a long moment the Clan Head simply looked at him. Displeasure lay bare across his face.
"Dang Hwa not disliking you does not mean I have given my permission."
His voice dropped.
"That child puts on a strong front, but she's soft inside. Don't wound her."
"I understand."
Hyeong Jin bowed his head.
"Go on, then. This old man has taken far too much of a young man's time."
Hyeong Jin had started away when the voice came again.
"Ah."
His body stopped.
"Should a tear ever fall from my daughter's eyes."
He turned. The face that met him was a thing of terror.
What met his eyes as he stepped out of the Clan Head's hall was Dang Hwa, stamping her feet in a fret. The moment she saw him, her face lit up.
"What did Father say? He didn't go and say something strange again, did he?"
Hyeong Jin smiled.
"He offered nothing but kind words. He asked after my master's health."
Dang Hwa let out a long breath.
"Honestly. Always doing what nobody asked him to. Well then — the poison room next, isn't it?"
Hyeong Jin's expression crumpled.
"What a formidable passion for learning."
"If not for that, why would I have called you?"
She tapped his shoulder and laughed, playful.
The two of them stepped into Dang Hwa's poison room. From within her robes she drew a feather needle.
"Blood first."
Hyeong Jin had been about to refuse when the Clan Head's face passed through his mind.
"Here."
"Good boy. It'll only sting for a moment, all right?"
Feather needle in hand, Dang Hwa's smile was radiant.
"Don't treat me like a child."
His tone was blunt. Whether he liked it or not, she caught his blood in a bowl as though it were something precious.
"That should be enough blood. Dissection next?"
"Has the Tang Clan branched out into butchery these days?"
Dang Hwa cackled and patted his shoulder.
"I'm joking. Though it would be a waste, wouldn't it? A specimen this rare — such a shame if it died."
Under the stare she leveled straight at his face, Hyeong Jin turned his head.
"Oh. Your ears have gone red, Young Hero Hyeong."
"That's because you drew blood. It's circulating."
"Ohhh. I see."
Dang Hwa smiled, thoroughly satisfied.
"Miss."
Seo Rin came through the door, took in the peculiar air hanging between Dang Hwa and Hyeong Jin, and promptly caught fire.
"Again! Young Hero Hyeong. How many times have I told you?"
Hyeong Jin turned his head at once, but Seo Rin's lecture — on the proper separation of men and women from the age of seven — carried on for a full hour. No rebuttal was permitted.
Watching his expression slowly rot, Dang Hwa did nothing but clutch her stomach and laugh.
This accursed place. A shudder ran through Hyeong Jin.
The Tang Clan Head's birthday banquet concluded in grand fashion. Caught in the grip of Dang Hwa's research, Hyeong Jin remained at the clan two days more, and in that time the rumor that some nameless disciple of the Jeomchang Sect had brought down the Sword Dragon spread beyond the banquet hall and through all of Chengdu.
"Next time, I won't lose."
Namgung Cheon ground his teeth.
"Who from the Jeomchang Sect, you said?"
That was the sort looking to hitch themselves to a rising name.
"Hey, say that again. The Sword Dragon lost to who?"
And that was the sort sniffing after an opportunity. All manner of people had begun to move.
Hyeong Jin came to a stop beneath the Tang Clan's main gate and lifted his eyes to the plaque.
A bright, unburdened laugh left him.
At last. I'm leaving.
And there was one person thoroughly grated by that laugh.
"Next time, put that smile away before I actually dissect you, won't you?"
"I won't be coming back. Don't worry."
"If you don't come, I'll simply go to you."
Hyeong Jin's face went blank.
Dang Hwa tapped his shoulder.
"I'm lying. Look how easily you startle."
Hyeong Jin avoided Seo Rin's smoldering glare.
"Would you kill that personality of yours."
"Yes, Papa~."
He turned away, shaking his head.
A personality like that — whoever ends up taking her, I couldn't say, but they'll have their hands full.
A smile rose to his lips all the same.
The road back to the Jeomchang Sect he shared with a dependable black horse.
Good horse.
It must have eaten well and slept well at the Tang Clan; a healthy gloss ran through its mane.
"Living the good life, aren't you."
Beneath the hand smoothing its mane, the black horse blew out a soft snort.
"Let's go."
The words had barely left him before the horse shot forward like an arrow.
Good blood in this one?
Hyeong Jin's gaze settled on it. Set beside the warhorse he had ridden in his previous life, the beast came up short in nothing.
Running hard, the horse slowed. A fallen tree blocked the road ahead.
Hyeong Jin's eyes changed.
"Well, well. If it isn't the great hero himself — the Hidden Dragon who turned the Tang Clan's banquet upside down."
At his halt, men in black robes and wide bamboo hats began to close in. Hyeong Jin swung down from the saddle and slapped the horse's rump, and the black horse started away.
"Who are you."
Hidden Dragon. What a lazy excuse for an epithet.
"Watching the main gate paid off after all. To think you'd walk out without a single guard."
The man who appeared to be their leader — Gwak Cheon-ak — could not stop laughing.
"What's so funny."
"Rumors in the jianghu are bound to be exaggerated, but a nameless disciple of the Jeomchang Sect beating the Young Master of the Namgung Clan? I could hardly believe my ears."
The smile hardened on his face.
"Do you take people for complete fools? Who's going to believe the nonsense that you beat the Sword Venerable's grandson? Still — bring us just your head, and the name of the Crimson Scale Gate will spread through all of Sichuan."
"Do you find the Jeomchang Sect amusing?"
Hyeong Jin's mouth set in a hard line.
"The Jeomchang Sect? Ah, that oh-so-great Jeomchang Sect? But this is Sichuan. Kill you and slip away into Guizhou, and what exactly can that lofty sect of yours do about it?"
Gwak Cheon-ak drew his momentum up. Qi not yet fully brought to heel surged rough and wild.
He hasn't been at the Peak for long.
Hyeong Jin's face went blank.
"I'll count to three. Anyone still here after that dies."
The men of the Crimson Scale Gate began to laugh.
"Three."
"What's he saying? Our Gate Lord's epithet is the Four Yin Sword — the Four Yin Sword. You're already dead."
"Two."
"Oh, I'm so scared."
"Look at him putting on airs. Thinks we'll wet ourselves."
"One."
Hyeong Jin's figure vanished.
The man at the very front clutched his throat and collapsed. Gwak Cheon-ak, having lost the movement entirely, went rigid.
"This bastard."
"Kill him."
The black-robed men's swords turned on Hyeong Jin, yet not a single blade reached his body. Each time his sword extended, the Crimson Scale disciples lessened by one.
"Die."
What stopped him was Gwak Cheon-ak's sword.
"You're last."
Hyeong Jin's kick drove into his gut.
When?
Gwak Cheon-ak's eyes flew wide. His body slammed into a great tree and went slack, and into his flickering mind came the shouts of his men.
"Kill him! There's only one of them!"
"Pin his movements! I'll handle him!"
The vice-gate lord was lying. He drove his subordinates forward and broke into a run for the forest alone.
His feet did not carry him far.
Hyeong Jin stood before him.
"You've made yourself a commander, and now you mean to run with your men as your shield."
"My life — just spare my life."
"You don't even have the basics of a commander."
The vice-gate lord's scream rang through the trees.
"Gaaah! Fuck — fuck, you bastard!"
Hyeong Jin moved without a word, and the voices thinned. The screams that broke out now and again cut off at last.
The stench of blood grew thick.
He came walking back, slowly. His black robes were stained with blood.
Gwak Cheon-ak's face had gone hollow.
"You really did beat the Sword Venerable's grandson?"
"Yes."
"My luck is absolute shit."
"Finished talking?"
Faced with an expression that did not so much as flicker, Gwak Cheon-ak let out an empty laugh.
Those flat eyes. A butcher's eyes. The orthodox bastards' judgment must have rotted clean through — calling a thing like this a Hidden Dragon, and then keeling over for the privilege.
It had been a bitter life. Gwak Cheon-ak spat.
"Fuck off."
Hyeong Jin's sword flashed.
Gwak Cheon-ak's body fell.